What happened to my Apistogramma cacatuoides double red.

[Kelly's Critters]

So I've got lots of tanks an species of fish and plants with lots of success. However I've had crazy bad luck with female Apistogramma. I'm try to grow a decent female to breed with my male. They keep dying. Probably just dum luck once you have a huge collection.

This new female was fine an eating plus flowing. She looked awesome. Past the 2 week mark I added Clown killifish to her grow out. They were not much smaller than her but she instantly started hunting them. So I moved here to the grow out beside it. Empty an never having fish with just giant duckweed, red root an water lettuce. She was ok for 2 days then today she looked sick. Sitting on the bottom an her colors pale an dark lol with red belly. Anyway a couple hours latter I was going to try diagnosing her trouble an possibly treating or salt after water change.

She was already dead. This all took less then 24 hours. In just a few not looking at her she died an her skin was raw an bloody/missing to her insides?

Wtf happened? Crazy aggressive rate bacteria?

Poison?

I'm lost.

I just want to grow I nice girl for my boy.

Do I toss that set up an starilize everything.
Sacrifice a guppy in there an see if it gets it to??

 

[Kelly's Critters]

So I've got lots of tanks an species of fish and plants with lots of success. However I've had crazy bad luck with female Apistogramma. I'm try to grow a decent female to breed with my male. They keep dying. Probably just dum luck once you have a huge collection.

This new female was fine an eating plus flowing. She looked awesome. Past the 2 week mark I added Clown killifish to her grow out. They were not much smaller than her but she instantly started hunting them. So I moved here to the grow out beside it. Empty an never having fish with just giant duckweed, red root an water lettuce. She was ok for 2 days then today she looked sick. Sitting on the bottom an her colors pale an dark lol with red belly. Anyway a couple hours latter I was going to try diagnosing her trouble an possibly treating or salt after water change.

She was already dead. This all took less then 24 hours. In just a few not looking at her she died an her skin was raw an bloody/missing to her insides?

Wtf happened? Crazy aggressive rate bacteria?

Poison?

I'm lost.

I just want to grow I nice girl for my boy.

Do I toss that set up an starilize everything.
Sacrifice a guppy in there an see if it gets it to??View attachment 313082

All water parameters check out just fine for an apistogramma cacatuoides.

The Clown killifish are fine.

I don't even want to accidentally touch that water an get it anywhere lol. Also disgusting but I cut here open to check for any type of visible parasites. Nothing, she was impressively clean inside.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

How long had you had her for?
I definitely wouldn't move any of the other fish, and keep the clowns where they are for now, just in case. Being careful not to cross contaminate tanks including the water is the right move. You're wary of it for good reason, it's easy to transfer disease and parasites between tanks quite easily, so until you have an idea what happened especially, be extra careful about hand washing between tanks and not to share equipment.

How many females have you lost, and was it a similar story with the way they passed? Same grow out tank? Where did you get the fish from?

 

[Kelly's Critters]

No the other female appeared to possibly cut herself on a cave opening an get infected which I treated with salt an she was 90 percent healed only to develop internal infection likely of the swim bladder. I caught it to late an nothing helped her. They were both from the same store from different aged an sized batches. The male is amazing.

I had the new female for 2 weeks in a make shift quarantine/grow out before introducing her to my male. It was 2 days after moving hey away from the new killifish so she would not eat them.

She was for 48 hours. Eating, swimming an looking great. Then from feeding baby brine last night to tonight. Dead.

 

[Kelly's Critters]

No the other female appeared to possibly cut herself on a cave opening an get infected which I treated with salt an she was 90 percent healed only to develop internal infection likely of the swim bladder. I caught it to late an nothing helped her. They were both from the same store from different aged an sized batches. The male is amazing.

I had the new female for 2 weeks in a make shift quarantine/grow out before introducing her to my male. It was 2 days after moving hey away from the new killifish so she would not eat them.

She was for 48 hours. Eating, swimming an looking great. Then from feeding baby brine last night to tonight. Dead.

I never got to introduce her to the male as she died today. I was going to condition her for 2 more weeks then give her a sleep over it the male.

 

[Kelly's Critters]

 

[GaryE]

A couple of things come to mind.

First, it is possible the annulatus carry something they've adapted to that the Apisto hadn't. So the contact situation killed her.

Or she developed a bacterial infection, and simply died of it. She looks that way.

I bred a lot of cacatuoides, so I will offer you advice to take or leave. If you get a female to survive, give her a tank. Let her get established, then put the male into her space. If he has been alone for a while, he could kill her upon introduction. She has to be 100% ready to breed, or it can go wrong. She could kill him, he could kill her.

Stick with a rigid water changing plan. Apistogramma, even the tougher ones like cacatuoides, are delicate fish. If you go more than 10 days between water changes, bad things often happen.

In all my time keeping these fish, none cut themselves. Lesions are usually disease symptoms, and infections involving the swim bladder are usually intestinal.

 

[Kelly's Critters]

A couple of things come to mind.

First, it is possible the annulatus carry something they've adapted to that the Apisto hadn't. So the contact situation killed her.

Or she developed a bacterial infection, and simply died of it. She looks that way.

I bred a lot of cacatuoides, so I will offer you advice to take or leave. If you get a female to survive, give her a tank. Let her get established, then put the male into her space. If he has been alone for a while, he could kill her upon introduction. She has to be 100% ready to breed, or it can go wrong. She could kill him, he could kill her.

Stick with a rigid water changing plan. Apistogramma, even the tougher ones like cacatuoides, are delicate fish. If you go more than 10 days between water changes, bad things often happen.

In all my time keeping these fish, none cut themselves. Lesions are usually disease symptoms, and infections involving the swim bladder are usually intestinal.

Thank you for the quality information. I will put it to good use.

I had planed to put her into a species specific breeding tank first. With a cave only she fit in plus a couple others. Then introduce him.

Quality experience an pro tips I can always use. I'm working on better an better fish husbandry. I'm back in the hobby for fun as a not for profit breeder as that's an area that excites me in the hobby.

I know fish die an when you have lots a few fish out of a couple hundred happens. What I'm working towards is better understanding of fish related ilnesses an how to treat or prevent them. Also enough knowledge to think an worry about fish health less.


Not that I stress about fish health. I wouldn't say I'm supper comfortable tho. I concern about spreading anything if something happens. Or what it might be an if I even should be concerned lol.

Thanks Adora & Garry

 

[Ichthys]

My first thought was that the ‘damage’ may have been done after she died...

 

[Kelly's Critters]

Unfortunately no. She was alone in quarantine without so much as a snail.

 

[GaryE]

Had she been on a spaceship recently, and picked up an ALIEN?

 

[anewbie]

No - look you never stated your aquarium size or scaping. You have to understand how cockatoo work - they don't pair; the male establishes a territory and when a female comes into his territory and is ready to breed he breeds with her; if she is not ready to breed (bright yellow); he will chase her out of his territory and wait for a 'better' female (one who wants to breed). When the male has done his job and fertlize the eggs; the female will guard them (and here the table turns) she will viciously attack the male if he is anywhere near her.

As to how robust and vicious these attacks are depends on a number of factors including the individual fishes. What I can say is that if the aquarium is smaller than a 20 long and not 'well' scape (well here means places for the fish to hide and not bee seen) there is a good chance either the female or male will be killed during the 'cycle' described above. Now there are dwarf cichild (including some species of apistogramma) that do form pairs (some temporarily - some life time) and the male/female aggression is much lower ONCE the pair forms (in some species the female is pretty picky about mates and will drive the male away if she 'rejects' him.

 

[GaryE]

I'll respectfully disagree. What I have seen is both females and males establishing territories, and pairing if they overlap. Older wild caught females are very territorial, and are always ahead of males in grabbing space.

 

[anewbie]

I'll respectfully disagree. What I have seen is both females and males establishing territories, and pairing if they overlap. Older wild caught females are very territorial, and are always ahead of males in grabbing space.

What I've seen is the female picks a place for laying eggs but she goes to the male and signals him to follow to her egg laying place.

 

[GaryE]

And the egg place is her territory.

It matters because it affects tank set up. It's not just a fish watcher's debate. I went with the male territory view for the first 10 years I kept dwarf Cichlids, but since I started designing tanks for multiple territories there has been a lot less violence. I bred my first Apistogramma in 1993, although I switched exclusively to West Africans 10 years ago.